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Siege of Fontainebleau
The Siege of Fontainebleau occurred in the winter of 1560 when a Huguenot army led by Louis I of Bourbon, Prince de Conde and the mercenary general Vincent Renaude besieged King Francis II of France and Mary, Queen of Scots at the Palace of Fontainebleau near present-day Paris, France. The siege ended when King Francis led a successful sortie against the Huguenots, routing Prince de Conde's army. The siege was one of the many events which precipitated the formal start of the French Wars of Religion in 1562. Background Louis I of Bourbon, Prince de Conde was a powerful French noble from the House of Bourbon; not only was he the brother of King Antoine of Navarre, but he also emerged as the face of the Protestant Huguenot cause in the years leading up to the start of the French Wars of Religion in 1562. Conde pushed for justice after his nephew Emile de Bourbon was dragged out of a church service and murdered by Catholic thugs, and he also protested against his cousin King Francis II of France's signing of an edict which required all French citizens to openly state their religious beliefs; this law led to the arrests of thousands of Protestants by Cardinal Vasari, Cardinal Perazzo, and their Swiss Guards. The murder of the Huguenot leader known only as "the Minister" in 1559 provoked a wave of Catholic-Huguenot violence, and King Francis was forced to send in the military to crush pockets of radical Huguenot resistance. The Prince de Conde had remained neutral for much of the conflict, even helping Mary, Queen of Scots track down and kill three radical Huguenot assassins who had snuck into the Palace of Fontainebleau and raped her during a failed assassination attempt on Francis. However, the breaking point occurred in the winter of 1560, when, in response to King Francis' dispatching of 2,000 French troops to assist the Catholic monarchy of Scotland in crushing the Protestant Lords of the Congregation, over two dozen radical Huguenot rebels seized hostages at a Benedictine monastery near Angers, killing over 40 soldiers and monks and taking 19 children hostage. In a move to discredit the increasingly powerful Prince de Conde (who was also in a love affair with Queen Mary, whom he attempted to convince to leave France behind and return to Scotland with him), Queen Catherine de Medici and the powerful noble Stephane Narcisse planted bodies wearing the coat of arms of Conde at the scene of the monastery siege, framing the Protestant Conde for the Huguenots' actions. While the siege ended in a victory for the royalist forces, Conde's reputation was shattered, and he had no choice but to accept England's longstanding offer to wed him to Queen Elizabeth I of England, thus making him King consort of England. The Valois monarchy killed his proxy wife Annabelle Breton and the other witnesses to the proxy marriage in a house fire which also destroyed the marriage documents, rendering the marriage undone, and Conde attempted to flee to England. He was briefly captured before being rescued by the English diplomat Lord Akers, who then assured him that the marriage plans were still on, and instructed him to rally the Protestants into an army and rebel against the French monarchy. King Francis dispatched his mercenary general Vincent Renaude to the Bois de Bouconne (near Toulouse), where Conde was supposedly assembling his army, but Renaude was surrounded by Conde and several of his soldiers. Conde invited Renaude to join his forces with the rest of his army, and he used his son - who had been sent to him by the English (who had captured him at the Siege of Calais) - as leverage. Ultimately, Renaude agreed to defect with his entire army, and he was promised to serve as commander of all of Louis' armies once he became King. Toulouse fell to the Huguenots within a matter of hours, and the city's fall damaged the Royal French Army's ability to supply itself with weapons, as Toulouse was their main supply base. King Francis immediately summoned General Renaude and his army back to the palace, unaware that they had betrayed him, and he also sent out a request for aid from King Philip II of Spain. Siege Mary's capture and escape King Francis, fearing that the palace was in danger, had his wife Mary, Queen of Scots leave at first light the next morning, and her carriage was halted by Renaude's men. Renaude ordered some of his men to escort her, reasoning that the path ahead was crawling with Conde's men, and Renaude then sent word to Conde that his men had captured the Queen. Mary asked her guard about the direction in which Conde's troops were marching, and the captain reported that they began to cross the River Road from the direction of St. Serafina's Abbey; Mary realized that the captain was lying, as this wound mean that Conde's troops would be marching east, when, in fact, the royals' last position was in the west. Mary then realized that the captain was confused, and the captain ordered his troops to seize her. Mary's guards attacked the Huguenot rebels as Mary fled on horseback, and her guards fought to the death. Mary then returned to the palace to warn Francis of Renaude's treachery, and the King's deputy and half-brother Sebastian de Poitiers ordered that the castle be fortified, as they were too late to prevent Renaude's army from arriving. First assault King Francis had the gates shut and ordered his men to attack Renaude's forces who had already made it within the castle walls; while some fighting occurred in the castle's courtyard, the Royalist archers on the ramparts fired down on more Huguenot soldiers who attempted to throw grappling hooks onto the walls. Francis himself led the defenses from the walls and ordered his archers to hold their fire until the Huguenots began to climb the walls, ensuring maximum accuracy and enemy casualties. As the Huguenots outside of the walls were repelled, those inside were overwhelmed, and Sebastian captured Renaude after a duel. Renaude then warned King Francis that Conde had the backing of several Protestant nobles, and this was confirmed when the Huguenots established a large siege camp outside of the castle walls. Siege King Francis ordered that all able-bodied men in the castle prepare to fight, as King Philip's army was still days away. He then received news that Conde wanted to meet him one-on-one, and the two of them met in front of the castle gates. Conde demanded that the King surrender peacefully, but the King refused, saying that, if he let Conde take the castle, Queen Elizabeth would demand Mary's head on a plate. Conde still promised that Mary would live, as he was sure that Elizabeth would accept France becoming Protestant, but both of them agreed that there could not be two kings, and Francis resolved to fight to the end. Conde revealed that no help was coming to Fontainebleau, as the three French envoys to the Spanish had been caught and executed. Conde then warned Francis that he would attack at dawn, and Francis prepared for battle the next day. Queen Mary snuck into Conde's camp that night, asking that Conde protect her because she was pregnant with his child. However, Mary's visit was a ruse, as several prostitutes arrived in the camp shortly after her; these were sent by Mary's former lady-in-waiting Greer Norwood, who sent them to poison Conde's troops. Meanwhile, Mary caused Conde to panic by claiming that cannons had been snuck into the castle two days earlier. Conde responded by ordering that the siege guns be brought up, despite being warned that doing so would delay the Huguenot attack; the cannons were at the rear of the Huguenot column. Final battle The next morning, many of Conde's troops were sent to the hospital tents after being poisoned, and the prostitutes caused a panic by dipping their fingers in ashes and claiming that the plague had broken out in the camp. As Conde's troops panicked, Francis and Sebastian de Poitiers launched a sortie against Conde's camp, overrunning the demoralized Huguenots. Francis captured a wounded Conde as his army scattered and fled, and the Royalists emerged victorious. Aftermath King Francis celebrated his triumph upon returning to the castle, but he ignored his mother's pleas to have Conde beheaded, arguing that doing so would make him a Protestant martyr, and that keeping him alive as a bargaining chip would be more useful (he believed that he could hand him back to his brother Antoine of Navarre in exchange for the House of Bourbon relinquishing its claim to the French throne). Francis' wish to end the struggle with diplomacy instead of war prevented the outbreak of a full-scale war between Catholics and Protestants, but Francis died of an illness shortly after. Category:French Wars of Religion Category:Sieges